title: Ecological quality assessment of small estuaries from the Portuguese coast based on fish assemblages indices.
abstract: The importance of establishing the ecological quality of estuarine systems has been widely acknowledged and led to the development of several fish community-based multimetric indices. Nevertheless, a question rose about the accuracy of these tools when natural disturbance is acting upon the organization of the systems' communities. Four multimetric indices were used to examine their ability to differentiate the ecological status of five small estuarine systems (southern Portugal), and also to test if they reflected the level of anthropogenic pressures. Fish assemblages from Mira, Odeceixe and Aljezur (in the Southwest coast), Gilão and Bensafrim (in the South coast) estuaries were sampled seasonally for one year, and anthropogenic sources of pressure were identified and quantified. We found that although the applied indices provided information on ecological condition differentiation among systems, they are unable to explain different classes of ecological status in systems with equivalent pressure levels.
authors.affiliation: Centro de Oceanografia, Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa, Campo Grande, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal. ipcardoso@fc.ul.pt
authors.forename: Inês
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Cardoso
authors.forename: Miguel Pessanha
authors.initials: MP
authors.lastname: Pais
authors.forename: Sofia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Henriques
authors.forename: Luís Cancela
authors.initials: LC
authors.lastname: da Fonseca
authors.forename: Henrique N
authors.initials: HN
authors.lastname: Cabral
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D017753:Ecosystem; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000379:methods*; D005398:Fisheries / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D005399:Fishes / Q000145:classification* / Q000254:growth & development; D005618:Fresh Water / Q000737:chemistry; D009792:Oceans and Seas; D011156:Population Density; D011174:Portugal; D012623:Seawater / Q000737:chemistry; D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical / Q000032:analysis; D014877:Water Pollution, Chemical / Q000706:statistics & numerical data
chemical_list: D014874:Water Pollutants, Chemical